The deputies of the Third Estate were bent on the destruction of feudalism, as the only way to remedy the national evils, which were so glaring and overwhelming.  They probably knew that their proceedings were unconstitutional and illegal, but thought that their acts would be sanctioned by their patriotic intentions.  They were resolved to secure what seemed to them rights, and thought little of duties.  If these inestimable and vital rights should be granted without usurpation, they would be satisfied; if not, then they would resort to usurpation.  To them their course seemed to be dictated by the “higher law.”  What to them were legalities that perpetuated wrongs?  The constitution was made for man, not man for the constitution.

Had the three orders deliberated together in one hall, although against precedent and legality, the course of revolution might have been directed into a different channel; or if an able and resolute king had been on the throne, he might have united with the people against the nobles, and secured all the reforms that were imperative, without invoking revolution; or he might have dispersed the deputies at the point of the bayonet, and raised taxes by arbitrary imposition, as able despots have ever done.  We cannot penetrate the secrets of Providence.  It may have been ordered in divine justice and wisdom that the French people should work out their own deliverance in their own way, in mistakes, in suffering, and in violence, and point the eternal moral that inexperience, vanity, and ignorance are fatal to sound legislation, and sure to lead to errors which prove disastrous; that national progress is incompatible with crime; that evils can only gradually be removed; that wickedness ends in violence.

A majority of the deputies meant well.  They were earnest, patriotic, and enthusiastic.  But they knew nothing of the science of government or of constitution-making, which demand the highest maturity of experience and wisdom.  As I have said, nearly four hundred of them were country lawyers, as conceited as they were inexperienced.  Both Mirabeau and Sieyes had a supreme contempt for them as a whole.  They wanted what they called rights, and were determined to get them any way they could, disregarding obstacles, disregarding forms and precedents.  And they were backed up and urged forward by ignorant mobs, and wicked demagogues who hated the throne, the clergy, and the nobles.  Hence the deputies made mistakes.  They could see nothing better than unscrupulous destruction.  And they did not know how to reconstruct.  They were bewildered and embarrassed, and listened to the orators of the Palais Royal.